Also supportive of Trump: those who say the most important issue facing the country is immigration.
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Clinton expected to win in both Florida and North Carolina, but Sanders made a big play for OH, arguing that his campaign could win there after an upset victory in neighboring MI last week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., garnered 33 percent of the vote.
After Tuesday, the Democratic race heads West, with contests in Arizona, Utah and Idaho next Tuesday, followed by Alaska, Hawaii and Washington later the same week.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in North Carolina with widespread support from black voters.
With 208 of its 299 precincts reporting in, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are leading their respective primaries in Florida’s Pinellas County by a landslide. “Defeat our adversaries – not embolden them”, Clinton said, speaking a few miles from Trump’s Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago where he planned to hold his own news conference.
On the Democratic side, Clinton has won the Florida and OH primaries – crucial victories that bolster Clinton’s claim that she is her party’s only candidate who can win diverse states that will be pivotal in the November general election.
Given this sentiment, it’s no surprise that there is a lot of desire for a candidate who is outside the political system, a sentiment that has propelled Trump’s strong bid for the nomination.
As Sanders said in his speech on Tuesday, his campaign has “defied all expectations”. In those states, he drew support from voters without college diplomas, those with lower incomes and people looking for a president from outside the political establishment.
Florida was Tuesday’s crown jewel, but North Carolina and OH were key wins against a late surging Sanders. Cruz has been urging Rubio and Kasich to step aside and let him get into a one-on-one race, which he’s said is the best way to stop Trump. “I think that in the states that are coming down the pike, we have great opportunities to win many of them so we’re feeling really good”.
Preliminary results include interviews with 663 to 1,710 Democratic primary voters and 718 to 2,255 Republican primary voters in each state.
Trump benefited last week in Michigan’s primary from a widespread belief that worldwide trade does more harm than good, but he and Kasich split the vote among OH voters who believe that trade has taken away jobs.
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The surveys were conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 30 to 40 randomly selected sites in five states holding primary elections Tuesday. North Carolina has lots of early absentee voters, so close to half the ballots could be counted and reported in the first half-hour. She won by about 16 points, results showed.
